Beginning January 1st 2018 an AR with a bullet button is either going to have to be modified or registered with the state to remain legal. The problem is you can’t even register an AR right now.

“They don’t know how to implement these laws,” said Craig Deluz with the Firearms Policy Coalition, a group that lobbies for gun owner rights in California.

He says the new law requires the Department of Justice to come up with new regulations before it can open up an electronic registration system. But so far the agency has failed to do that. That’s leaving law abiding gun owners who want to register but can’t in a Catch 22.

“At the very end of December, on the eve of New Years Eve, they tried to sneak the regulations past the public through the administrative process, with no public input whatsoever. When they found out they weren’t going to be able to get away with that they pulled them back,” said Deluz.

But Ari Freilich, staff attorney for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, says it’s the other way around.

“Unfortunately the gun lobby has used their typical delay tactics,” he said.

Freilich blames push-back from the gun lobby, including threats of lawsuits, for the delay.

“The California legislature specifically passed a law to say that California’s Department of Justice does not have to go through the rigmarole of public comment and red tape every time they want to develop regulations about registering assault weapons,” said Freilich.